By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 22, 2017)

Being There – The Criterion Collection Blu-ray

For my money, the late director Hal Ashby was the quintessential embodiment of the new American cinema movement of the 1970s. Beginning in 1970, he bracketed the decade with an astonishing seven film streak: The Landlord, Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, and this 1979 masterpiece.

Like Sidney Lumet’s Network, Hal Ashby’s 1979 film becomes more vital with age (and especially timely in light of Donald J. Trump’s ascendancy). Adapted from Jerzy Kosinki’s novel by frequent (and here uncredited) Ashby collaborator Robert C. Jones, it is a wry political fable about a simpleton (Peter Sellers, in one of his greatest performances) who stumbles his way into becoming a Washington D.C. power player within an alarmingly short period of time.

Richly drawn, finely layered, and superbly acted; from the leads (Sellers, Melvyn Douglas, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Warden, Richard Dysart to the small roles (especially the wonderful Ruth Attaway).

Criterion’s Blu-ray features a beautiful 4K restoration and a plethora of enlightening extra features.